


solace

by epsiloneridani



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, but apparently everyone except them knows, these two idiots like each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 18:09:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17411705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epsiloneridani/pseuds/epsiloneridani
Summary: “What brings you down to the infirmary?” Fred blurts. Veta Lopis is still in the doorway, surveying the room like she’s waiting for an invitation to enter.“Ash needs more painkillers,” she offers at last, “but he won’t admit it.”—-Fred’s laid up in the infirmary. Veta needs medicine for her team.Fred helps.





	solace

“For the last time, I’m  _all right_.”

Kelly doesn’t look convinced. Fred bats her hand away as gently as she can and she furrows her brow and takes his wrist and goes back to fiddling with the bandage wrapped around his skull.

There’s no stopping her.

“Fred, you need to  _rest_ ,” she says, and it’s the thousandth time, he knows. Linda’s folding her arms and smirking at him from the chair in the corner and she only ever does that face when she knows someone’s about to be blasted by Kelly’s maternal instincts. Mostly she makes it at John.

Mostly.

“I’m all right,” Fred says, but he tries to sit up and his ribs twinge and he winces. John arches one eyebrow at him.

“What?” Fred demands.

John rolls his shoulders in a shrug. “Nothing, Fred.”

“ _John_.”

Kelly’s back to fussing and Fred grimaces. It gets her attention for all of half a second; then she realizes why he’s doing it, realizes she’s not actually hurting him and he just wants her to step away, and she rolls her eyes and tugs the blanket up a little higher.

“You need to rest,” she repeats calmly.

“ _Stop_ ,” he growls, swatting at the hand straightening his pillows. “Kelly. Stop. I’m all right. It’s only—”

The door hisses open and he stops to see who it is. For a second he doesn’t know, can’t see around the others.

Then Linda smirks.

“We have a briefing,” she says shortly, easing gracefully to her feet, and damn it, no they don’t, they can’t, they  _couldn’t_ , not without  _him_ , and John rolls his eyes and says  _I don’t know what she’s talking about_  without actually speaking a word.

Kelly lingers another moment, fixes another wrinkle in the blanket. “We’ll be back soon,” she promises, and John looks mildly perplexed but they’re still catching him up on a lot of things since they got him back so Fred wonders if it’s just them leaving for a while so he can pass out while they run over some old reports: John doesn’t like to be out of the loop. John’s never liked to be out of the loop.

Fred opens his mouth to ask them that, get someone’s attention, get someone’s reply, but Linda just gives him a little pat on the shoulder and sidles out the door before he can do either.

Then it’s just him, the hum of the medbay’s machines, and the silent silhouette in the doorframe.

It’s too short to be a Spartan. Even Lucy. The figure steps forward, almost shuffling, hesitant, and his chest turns suddenly; the monitor ticks up, up: a broken, stumbling beat.

“Inspector.”

Veta Lopis quirks her mouth in a half-smirk, stuffing her hands in her pockets and driving her shoulders back and her chin up. “Lieutenant.”

Fred fumbles for the bed’s remote, patting the mound of blankets Kelly tucked around him and trying not to break eye contact. It sounds easier than it is, and he almost flings the remote onto the floor in his haste. The second he has it in his hand he all but slams the button; the bed whirs, painfully loud in the otherwise still space, clicking, clicking, clicking. Fred drives his teeth into his lower lip until he realizes what he’s doing and stops.

“What brings you down to the infirmary?” he blurts, once he’s slightly more vertical and at eye level with his visitor. Lopis is still in the doorway, surveying the room like she’s waiting for an invitation to enter.

“Ash needs more painkillers,” she offers at last, “but he won’t admit it.”

It sounds strained, like she’s forcing it, and he briefly wonders how worn down she must be to let him hear it: too tired to cover it, too worried about her team. The Ferrets have been going like hell lately too. “Cabinet?”

She snorts softly but doesn’t move. Her comm. blips on her belt and she twitches and almost reaches for it but lets her hand fall to her side, tapping at her hip. “I…he didn’t tell me which one he needed.” She pinches the bridge of her nose and huffs a disbelieving breath. “ _Damn it_.”

“I could—”

“No,” she interrupts. “No. I’ve got it.”

“Oh.”

Lopis grimaces. Her ‘padd’s in her hand now and she taps at it for a long moment, furrows her brow and jams the device back into its pouch on her belt. “He won’t tell me,” she volunteers at his questioning glance. Her fingers tap, tap, tap at her hip again. “Says he doesn’t need them.”

“You want me to talk to him?”

Lopis arches a brow and he shrugs and fights down a wince. “Not that you couldn’t…it’s just a suggestion.”

She sighs. “No,” she says again, already heading for the terminal in the corner. “No, I’ll figure it out. I can pull up his records.”

Of course she can. For a moment there’s only the sound of her tick-tacking at the keys, then the low blip of her flipping through the files. “Got it,” she mutters, patting her pockets and snatching a pen from the desk and scribbling a few letters and numbers on her wrist. Lopis strides to the cabinet on the opposite wall, running a finger along the labels until she finds the one she wants, snaps the door open and – stops.

The shelves are a mess: sure, there are bottles, but they’re a disordered disaster and it takes Fred a second to remember the place was just overwhelmed with a hell of a lot of wounded soldiers and then got hit by a massive shipment of supplies shortly thereafter.

No one’s had the chance to set it straight.

“Well,  _shit_.”

“I can help—” Fred says, starting to shove off the blanket mound. Lopis opens her mouth to say something but he’s too busy struggling out of the web to hear her. His ribs twinge, twinge, warning, and he presses on – carefully, of course.

That’s what he plans to tell John, anyway.

"Are you supposed to be doing that?” Lopis asks wryly, folding her arms across her chest and tilting her head at him. Fred lifts a shoulder in a shrug and immediately regrets it, hopes he just  _felt_  the wince and didn’t really flinch.

“It’ll be all right,” he says as briskly as he can, hobbling over to stand beside her. “What’s the code?”

“There are hundreds of bottles here.”

“Then we’d better get started.”

Lopis blows out an exasperated breath and maybe she was going to say something else and maybe she wasn’t but Fred’s already read the medicine’s code off her wrist and is shuffling through the bottles immediately in front of him.

“It’s more efficient with two of us,” Fred says without looking at her. Spartans can read and process data faster than non-augmented individuals, not that he has that assistive edge when his head is spinning like this.

“….right.”

Lopis leaves him be and for a long stretch there’s only the tell-tale click-clack-shuffle the bottles make. Fred starts small rows without really thinking about it, as alphanumeric as he can manage with how scattered they are. Pick up, wrong, proper place, next.

"You’re shaking,” Lopis says suddenly.

It takes a minute to register. “I’m not,” Fred says slowly, but if he doesn’t blink his vision wavers, blurs. When did that start? Was it ever not like that?

“Look at your hands.”

He does. “Huh,” Fred says, blinking, blinking.

She grimaces at him. “You need to sit down.”

“We have to find the medicine for Ash.”

“I can do that. Go sit down.”

“But—”

“You’re going to fall over,” she says dryly and Fred wants to say she’s wrong, wants to deny it, but it wouldn’t be practical – or true. He waits a half a beat, waits for his body to tell him he can keep going, but the message is a resounding  _don’t, don’t, don’t_  so he plants one hand on the cabinet, turns as slowly as he can manage, and pauses.

Pauses.

Yes. Definitely a bad idea to be up for this long, careful or not.

It’s four steps to the bed. He makes it two and a half and then he’s lurching forward, going to fall on his face and bruise it and deal with teasing for  _weeks_ , and suddenly there’s a chair and he’s leaning on the back of that instead and trying to find a way to make his vision stop swimming.

Lopis looks amused. He’s grateful she had the good sense to go for the chair and not try to catch him herself. “You still with me?”

Her hand’s curled around his wrist. Fred stares at it blankly and Veta looks to him, to her hold, and sets her jaw but doesn’t let go.

“Sit down,” she repeats firmly. He nods and lets her guide him to the cot, sliding onto it and kicking at the blanket pile until it’s just a tangled mass at the foot of the bed.

“Kelly,” Fred says, like that explains everything.

“Of course.” Veta glances at the blankets Fred’s already reaching for and grasps his wrist again, tighter this time. “I’ve got it.”

Her movements are short and snapping, more about efficiency than Kelly’s method but still edged with caution and care. Once he’s settled she lingers, hovering at his side. Her hand is just barely resting beside his, tapping, tapping, tapping. He hesitates a moment – and then clasps it.

She starts. Her eyes snap to meet his and his chest tightens and it’s harder to breathe. “Thank you,” he manages a long beat later, squeezing gently.

A smile quirks the corners of her lips. Her thumb brushes at one of the deep scars left by the augmentations, a question and a confirmation in a single touch. “You’re welcome.”

He’s trying to come up with something else to say when the door hisses open and she snatches her hand back, whipping around and jamming her thumbs into her belt-loops. Her cheeks flush pink.

“Hey, Mom,” Ash says, tilting his head curiously. Fred wonders if he got the gesture from Veta or if it’s the other way around. “I just came to get my painkillers.”

“You told me you didn’t need any more.”

If Fred squints hard enough he’s almost sure he can see ‘Liv and Mark peeking around the corner. “Well kinda,” Ash says, dragging a hand through his hair. It’s a disheveled mop, well over regulation length, and Fred almost mentions it but Ash raises a hand in a half a wave toward him and he smiles and returns it.

“Your painkillers?” Veta reminds mildly.

“I’m going.” Ash ambles to the cabinet they half-organized, stops, and reaches for the door just above, plucking a bottle off the shelf and clicking the cabinet shut.

“They’re supposed to be in the other cabinet,” Veta says, deadpan.

“The doctor said that one’s too messy right now,” Ash shrugs. “She wanted me to be able to find them if I needed them again.”

“It would have been nice of you to mention that.”

“Sorry.” Ash glances between them but he doesn’t look sorry in the least; for all the exhaustion in his frame his eyes are sparkling. “I didn’t know you were gonna come down here.”

Veta narrows her eyes. “Go get some rest,” she says, craning her neck toward the door. “ _All of you_.”

Ash grins at her and slips out. The door hisses shut behind him.

“You too.” Veta adjusts the blanket slightly, just a short tug to straighten a wrinkle. “You look like you could use it.”

Fred nods agreeably. She hovers a moment more and then nods toward the door. “I’ll just—”

“Of course.”

Veta stops in the doorway. He wonders if he’s just too tired and dreaming it or if her smile really is softer. “Heal up,” she says quietly. Then she’s gone.

Fred’s still wondering about it a half an hour later when the door slides open again and several pairs of familiar footsteps creep carefully in.

“Fred?” Kelly calls softly.

“I’m all right,” he says, and he glances to meet her gaze but he doesn’t really see her.

“You haven’t slept yet,” John cuts in. Linda sprawls back in her seat in the corner, propping one leg over the other and giving him a flash of a grin that tells him she knows more than she says. Fred shrugs helplessly and tries not to flinch.

“Rest,” Kelly says, brushing a gentle touch through his hair. “We’ll be here when you wake up.

When he closes his eyes he can still see Veta’s smile.

–


End file.
